Eclipse and 4DM merge sales teams

The two formerly separate sales and commercial teams of 4DM and its owner, Eclipse Colour, have been restructured to create two group-wide teams.

The commercial team now reports to new commercial manager Lee Breedon. Breedon, formerly of GI Colour Solutions Group, was appointed around six weeks ago in preparation for the merger, which began on Monday.

Eclipse managing director Simon Moore said that the addition of 4DM’s sales team, following the buyout of the direct mail firm last September, had meant that there were duplications on customer accounts.

No redundancies were made and the two sales teams have been moved into an unused site to allow 4DM and Eclipse colleagues working on the same accounts to work closer together.

Joining them in the office, which was bought by Eclipse four years ago on the same Kettering industrial site as the other five offices, are 4DM’s print management firm, Direct Link, and Addition, its cross-media solutions provider. Moore said that he hopes that the move will give the subsidiaries more autonomy and independence.

The relocated businesses will also be subject to a rebrand, scheduled for the end of this month, to align the identities of the firms under the Eclipse name.

"The whole point was to get Eclipse and 4DM the chance to work closer together, and also to separate out the bits which might have been embroiled in the day-to-day to give them more focus on what we want to develop for the future.

"Eclipse and 4DM are still running as separate trading entities in terms of reporting functions, because we want to remain focused on the two disciplines, but in terms of the service that we can provide in the future, it will all fall under the Eclipse name" he said.

Moore also expects to spend around £1m upgrading the 4DM facilities in the coming year, although he said there are other areas of the business under review so total investment at the end of 2013 could top that figure.

On Sunday, Eclipse ran its 10-colour Speedmaster XL 106, ordered at Drupa, at full production for the first time.

Moore said output reached 168,000 sheets in the press's first shift from a cold start and including make ready times. It will be running 24/6 from now on.

A second Heidelberg order is to arrive at 4DM’s plant in March: two Stahlfolder TH 56s. Moore said that 4DM’s former directors, Les Ritchie and Charles Grant-Salmon, had identified folding as a bottleneck, and replacing the two MBOs previously used has increased output by 25%.

Moore has just placed an order for a Sitma file-based enclosing machine for 4DM, which is to arrive in April.

The machine will enhance the direct mail firm’s offering, particularly for transactional print, as its ability to read documents using cameras ensure that enclosed mail is correctly matched, heightening security.

"When I came in I didn’t need to make any snap decisions but part of continuing the investment cycle is evaluating everything, to see if we can do things more efficiently," he said.

Moore expects that the first full year of trading with 4DM will raise turnover to around £40m, a large increase from Eclipse’s solo revenue of £23m for 2012.